Richmond police reactivated the city’s Flock Safety license plate reader cameras on Friday, after the system was turned off last year over data-sharing concerns, according to Richmond Police Chief Tim Simmons.
The cameras were taken offline in October 2025 after a “national lookup” feature had been running in the background, which made Richmond’s license plate data accessible to law enforcement agencies across the country.
Simmons said technicians are testing each of the city’s cameras individually to verify that batteries and firmware are current before bringing units back online, a process expected to take about a week…